Perfect People

22

Somehow John got through his lecture. He fielded the barrage of questions from students that followed, answering them as briefly as possible, then hurried back to his office and closed the door. He sat down and checked his voice mail.

There was a message from Naomi. Her voice sounded tearful and panicky. ‘Call me, John,’ she said. ‘Please call me as soon as you get this.’

He put the phone down. What the hell was he going to tell her?

He called Dr Rosengarten, insisting to the secretary he had to speak to him right now.

After several minutes on hold, listening to Vivaldi’s ‘Four Seasons’, Dr Rosengarten came on the line, sounding his usual hurried, irritable self.

‘The diagnosis you gave us about the sex of our baby,’ John said. ‘How certain are you that it is a girl?’

The obstetrician put him on hold again while he checked his notes, then came back on the line. ‘No question about it, Dr Klaesson. Your wife is having a girl.’

‘You couldn’t have made a mistake?’

There was a long, chilly silence. John waited, but the obstetrician said nothing.

‘In your diagnosis,’ John added, a little flustered, ‘is there any margin for error?’

‘No, Dr Klaesson, there is no margin for error. Anything else I can do for you and Mrs Klaesson?’

‘No – I – I guess. Thank you.’

John hung up, angered by Rosengarten’s arrogance. Then he tried Dettore once more. Still the voice mail. He rang both of Sally Kimberly’s numbers again but this time left no message. Then he rang Naomi.

‘John.’ Her voice sound strange, trembling. ‘Oh God, John, have you heard?’

‘Heard what?

‘You haven’t seen the news?’

‘I’ve been giving a lecture. What news?’

He heard the rest of her words only intermittently, as if he were catching some bulletin on a badly tuned radio station.

‘Dr Dettore. Helicopter. Into sea. Crashed. Dead.’